


Wired For Light

by pyrimidine



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrimidine/pseuds/pyrimidine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four things that didn't happen to Nate, Ray, Trombley, and Brad after Iraq.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wired For Light

"Je- _sus_ ," Ray grunts. "I can still feel the idealism pouring off you! Get it off." He rubs his forearms with a few rapid swipes, as if he's standing out by a bus-stop during a Missouri winter.  
  
Which he's not. Instead, he, along with almost all the other members of second platoon, are crowded into a bar with high ceilings, cheap drinks, and broken air conditioning. Nate can barely even hear Ray over the sea of voices. If Ray Person is hard to hear, it must be getting pretty bad. The analog clock hanging over the bar says that it's only 11:00, but things are already rowdy. Someone's been coming by to clear away glasses from all five of their tables every twenty minutes or so. Ray has tried to hump Walt's head three times. The one time Nate was referred to by his rank, it only led to a bunch of Cap'n Morgan being ordered.  
  
"Seriously, sir." Gabe taps Nate's arm with the bottom of his beer bottle, peering at him curiously from behind his glasses. Everyone's been rotating chairs when they feel like it, and this time it's him and Ray on either side of Nate. "How the fuck did they not beat that out of you after all this time?"  
  
"Those big, sad eyes." Ray shakes his head. "Shit, he looks like one of those models for wildlife conservation posters. Right? All holding some big, rubbery seal and asking me to please donate funds."  
  
"Or a poster for venereal disease awareness."  
  
"The only thing to be aware of is that if you stop fucking Person's sister, VD will be a thing of the past," Nate says carefully but loudly, and right into one of those weird pockets of silence that sometimes settles over a big group.  
  
All the guys turn toward him with almost comedic synchronicity, and Nate shrugs. "Not much to it," he concludes, and goes to take a sip of his ale. It doesn't quite work out though, since he's jostled by about fifteen elbows and his drink splashes everywhere as a result.  
  
"Yo, I like the LT when he's not the LT," Poke declares, and then he's being drowned out by several people leaning over the table and hollering an order for another round.  
  
At this point, there are enough drinks in Nate to justify being drunk. This stage of it always feels the same to him: that buoyant, lazy feeling as his vision goes soft, like he's looking at the world through a fishbowl. He can still pull himself out of it and focus if he wants to, but fuck that. Instead, he closes his eyes and tries not to think. It's nice to hear everything without really having to listen. He knows it'll be a long time before that stops being a novelty.  
  
After a while, he tilts his head back and blinks at the bare, low wattage bulbs that are strung along the ceiling in zig-zags. If he squints, they look like a cluster of village lights, flickering a few klicks away. A familiar but warped sense of peace settles over him. This time it's not ruined by mortars or one of Schwetje's trademark coughs, which he deeply appreciates.  
  
When Nate finally straightens up, he's surprised to find that most of the chairs have been vacated. There's only Mike and Poke having a conversation at the opposite end of the tables, and Brad sitting right next to him, his legs open in a casual 'V'. His left knee is almost touching Nate's right.  
  
"What happened?" Nate asks him.  
  
"Alcohol induced time warp, sir. The pretty lights distracted you." Brad cocks his head and smiles faintly. "Everyone else is at the pool tables."  
  
Nate winces a little. "I hope no one breaks a cue in half and tries to stake a civilian."  
  
"That would only happen if they were sober," Brad tells him. He jogs his knee up and down and takes a pull from his beer, all while his gaze flits everywhere around the bar. Everywhere except for at Nate.  
  
"I hope you're having fun," Nate says lamely, and almost pats Brad's knee into stillness. Christ. When he's drunk, he gets stupid. People always tell him he gets quiet, but it's only because he'd rather get quiet than get stupid.  
  
"I usually don't do bars while rolling twenty Marines deep, but someone said we're sending off our choirboy of an LT -- ," Brad pauses to do that thing where he rubs his chin and grins wide at the same time. It's a quick flash of white teeth; Nate blinks, blindsided by the clarity of the image, " -- and as a team leader, I feel that it's part of my duty to show up and be a good sport."  
  
"I see," is all Nate can get out. There's an abrupt absence of music as someone takes their time choosing a new song in the jukebox.  
  
"Brad," Nate says suddenly, and it comes out louder than he'd expected. He swallows. "Look me up sometime."  
  
Brad studies him. "Sure."  
  
"I mean, actually look me up. Deign to use Google Maps. Don't tap into phone lines and use my lat-long to locate me," Nate continues. "Just -- "  
  
He cuts himself off. Just what? He doesn't know. Brad has shifted position, or maybe it was Nate, but their legs are pressing against each other now. Nate only notices it because Brad starts moving his leg up and down again, jostling Nate's own leg in the process. This time, Nate reaches out and curls his hand over Brad's knee. Brad stops immediately.  
  
A new song kicks in through the speakers, something with distortion and loud guitars. Nate tightens his grip, just a little.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Ray has been awake since 8:00 am the day previous, and he's still jittery as fuck. He twitches all over his room for a bit, practically tap-dancing on the carpet, and then finally decides to take a shower. Maybe the hot water will relax him and he'll be able to sleep afterward.  
  
He ends up throwing on some clothes and going to Wal-Mart.  
  
Drivings on uppers in a warzone means that he can make it from point A to point B in pitch dark, with janky-ass NVGs that become awash with white static every single time there's an explosion, all while crazy bitches are screaming through the radio and there are bullets flying everywhere. Driving on uppers in Nevada, Missouri means that he needs to turn off the radio, roll up all the windows, and grip the steering wheel at 10:00 and 2:00, with his elbows practically digging in to his ribcage. A grandma passes him in the slow lane and gives him the stink eye.  
  
Life's weird.  
  
His footsteps click sharply in the parking lot; he sees a reflected glimpse of himself in his dress blues before the sliding doors whoosh open. It only takes thirty seconds of talking out of his ass to convince one of the pimply employees to take a picture of him.  
  
"Here?" the kid asks uncertainly.  
  
"Yes, here." Ray stands in front of the Wal-Mart Wall of Heroes and tries to assume the same position in the picture that's taped up in the fourth row, fifth column. Ray from a year and a half ago, fatter in the face but with the same toothy smile.  
  
He develops the whole roll at the 1 hour counter in the back of the store. The first twenty-six pictures are all from high school, featuring people he barely remembers or doesn't give a shit about or both. They get tossed into the trash. The twenty-seventh gets put into an envelope that he then addresses to Brad. On the back of the picture, he writes,  _hey check it out brad, i'm being all meta and shit_.  
  
He taps the pen against his lip a few times, then starts a new paragraph:  _be careful with the corners when you tape this up in your locker. love, your ray-ray._  
  
On some level, Ray is totally and utterly jealous of whoever's on the pansy-ass team that Brad is lumped in with in England. Apparently the recipe for Ray to get pretty fucking possessive over anything around him is this:  
  
Step 1. Put Ray in a cramped military vehicle that practically has to be powered by the Flintstones, push-with-your-feet way  
Step 2. Subtract any kind of privacy  
Step 3. Add a bunch of uppers  
Step 4. Drive for so long that he goes all zombie style and starts drooling all over himself  
  
So now it turns out that Ray is actually very fond of Ripped Fuel, the steering wheel and broken odometer of their P.O.S. Humvee, the emergency stash of Ripped Fuel, 75% of Walt's legs, Trombley's stupid little sniffly snores, Reporter's dumb fucking questions, and, of course, Brad.  
  
The synopsis of Iraq could basically be described as him and Brad, trying to revive a dying marriage by going on a road trip with Walt, their aspiring novelist son, who loved the wind in his hair and reveled in the open road. Meanwhile, in the backseat was Trombley, the retarded younger son, and his hummus-eating, Polyphonic Spree-member buddy. A situational fucking comedy in real life. It's not Ray's fault that he might have gotten a little attached. When he gets really, really drunk, he even finds himself staring at the sky and wondering what the fuck that glassy eyed kid Trombley is up to now.  
  
The remnants of the uppers start cresting in again as he's walking through the parking lot. For some reason, this time Ray gets into this really involved fantasy about getting kidnapped by some POGs or some shit, and he ends up deliberately pressing his fingers all over the envelope so that when Brad gets the letter, he'll have a bunch of Ray's fingerprints at his disposal. Then he could like, track Ray down and kick ass to make him a free man once again. Yeah.  
  
He shakes himself out of his head and adjusts the rear-view mirror. The post office downtown should be open by now. As he pulls out onto the street, some fucking gay, edgy Justin Timberlake song comes on the radio.  
  
Ray sings along.  
  
  
***  
  
  
They're at Meeks Park, which is pretty much this shitty old playground with a sandbox on one side and a patch of grass on the other. A single tree overlooks the whole thing. Empty 40s and smoked out spliffs get dug up in the sandbox with regularity, but it's a nice little park, especially at night. It reminds Trombley of being young and sneaking out with the rest of the neighborhood kids; when drinking was just drinking, and before Tommy Wycomb went to rehab and Simone Brott got knocked up, and before Iraq. All of that seems like a long time ago. If Trombley looks back on it, life back then feels like a cocoon.  
  
He stares up at the sky. It's a clear night, lots of stars. "This one time at mess hall, our Sergeant Major came in and made this guy eat a piece of his belt," he says out loud to no one in particular. He doesn't know if anyone's even in the sandbox anymore.  
  
"Why'd he do that?" asks David's voice from his 3 o'clock.  
  
Trombley turns his head and sees David leaning up on his elbows, taking a swig of whiskey. "I don't know, he just did."  
  
There are noises coming from the playground -- people running up the slide, an occasional yelp -- but they sound kind of far away, compressed and dampened out by the silence that's everywhere else. David nods at Trombley and asks, "Hey, so what the hell are you going to do now? Lene says you signed up for some classes at community."  
  
"Yeah. I don't know. I was thinking of majoring in international politics?" Trombley grins. "It'd be an easier major if America just blew everyone else up, but I guess that can't happen all at once or anything."  
  
"Unless you got like, a really huge bomb," David speculates.  
  
Trombley hums in agreement. Then he sits up and brightens. "Hey, have you played the new Killzone yet?"  
  
"Naw. Is it good?"  
  
"Fuck yeah. FEAR 2 is awesome, too, I heard."  
  
David makes a thoughtful noise and doesn't respond otherwise. Trombley turns his head from side to side, digging himself a little groove in the sand for the back of his skull. It really is a nice night. He's glad he came.  
  
Ever since he got back, he's been camping out in the backyard a few times a week with only an old sweatshirt wadded up under his head. He still has trouble falling asleep without his gun tucked beside him, but nothing feels quite like his SAW, so he just does without. His bedroom is too fucking closed in and his neighborhood is too fucking quiet. There's only the occasional passing car with twelves in the trunk, and he'd much rather hear artillery rounds instead of that bass-blasting bullshit, but it's better than nothing.  
  
There are some days where the temperature dips drastically as soon as the sun sets, and this is when Trombley feels most comfortable. The concrete that's soaked with the remnants of the daytime heat, that stabbing feeling in his lungs when he breathes in real deep. He likes it a lot.  
  
Mostly he feels okay. It's just that he can't fucking sleep anymore.  
  
  
***  
  
  
Nate's hair has grown out into a fluffy mess, and it's sticking out all over the place. He's wearing a hoodie, dark blue basketball shorts, and no socks. His ankles are thin and pale.  
  
The first words out of Brad's mouth are, "I looked you up in the phone book."  
  
Then, he says, "Hi."  
  
Nate simply looks at him for a beat longer. It seems like he's waiting for Brad to say something else, but Brad just stands there until Nate looks away. He's smiling a little -- that wry, self-deprecating smile that Brad has seen so many times.  
  
"By 'phone book', did you actually mean the school server?" Nate finally asks. He glances up and Brad only raises his eyebrows in response. He takes note that his heart seems to be beating more loudly than usual, but his hand is steady when he pushes the front door open all the way.  
  
Nate steps back to let him in.

  



End file.
